Popular Destinations

Europe Paris London Rome Prague Barcelona Amsterdam Venice Berlin Vienna Budapest More Europe

North America New York City San Francisco Las Vegas Chicago Toronto Los Angeles Vancouver Orlando San Diego Montreal More North America

South America Buenos Aires Rio de Janeiro São Paulo Lima Santiago Cusco Quito Bogotá Machu Picchu Curitiba More South America

Australia and Oceania Sydney Melbourne Perth Brisbane Christchurch Auckland Adelaide Gold Coast Cairns Canberra More Australia and Oceania

Caribbean and Central America Havana San Juan San José Antigua Guatemala Nassau Negril Santo Domingo Panamá City Punta Cana Varadero More Caribbean and Central America

Middle East Istanbul Dubai Antalya Jerusalem Marmaris Bodrum Tel Aviv-Yafo Beirut Petra Damascus More Middle East

How Do I Start? Useful Planning Guides.

Useful planning guidebooks can be found at

http://www.travelindependent.info/books_planning.htm

Guidebooks by themselves with all their practical information, are not so good in the original planning stage. The Let's Go series are among the best guidebooks in the planning stage.

The best way to approach this is to do a little bit of research. Read before you travel!

What Choices Do I Have?

How many countries are there? By most accounts, 195. There are 192 members of the United Nations. Therefore the number 192 is too often used to represent the number of countries in the world. There are 61 dependent areas, and six disputed territories. Places commonly confused as being countries include Puerto Rico, Bermuda, Greenland, Western Sahara, and even the components of the United Kingdom (such as Northern Ireland, Scotland, Wales, and England - they're not countries, states, or nation-states).

The one outsider, Taiwan meets most of the requirements of independent country or state status. However, due to political reasons, it fails to be recognized by much of the world, so some count 196. Kosovo, Montenegro, then East Timor are the world's youngest. Although another way to look at it is Uganda is the world's youngest country, since 50% of the population are under 14. By those rights Italy is the oldest.

How Much Time Do You Have?

       Limited to a shorter few week trip? For the record if you are reading this and have weeks not months to travel in, this shouldn't deter you. Sure you need to plan a little more - pick one or two destinations and remember a few internal or regional flights and a little bit more money, lets you cover a lot in a short time-frame. It's not uncommon to see and do more in a few weeks that some long-term 'backpackers' achieve in a month!

       However if you are lucky enough to have the time, then pick a couple of regions, say SE Asia or Central America (good starters, loads of options), India/northern Pakistan (as good as it gets and quite a test) and Australia or Europe (Western countries are less exotic, but not less interesting; don't discount them - just budget well!) and plan to spend a few months in each, of course being flexible to stay longer or move on faster. Plain and simple, caprice is a great thing to have.

Plan First

Planning a route: For a long trip (word on shorter trips later), don't get too much into planning at home - just pick, depending on how much time you have, a few places and regions you want to see. What you often don't realise is that after several months on the road you can lack the passion for 14 plus hour bus trips or the money for internal flights to get to every 'attraction'. Equally many regions aren't as connectable on a budget as a world map might make them look.

It's true that the happiest travellers are the most flexible. Hell, if you have the time, why not even try to travel without an ultimate return ticket - or at least make sure dates can be changed with ease. You will soon realise where the tourist trail is (the easiest and most convenient way to see all the sights) and follow it, making modifications where you want. Most itineraries are just that - dots on a map of places people would like to see or things they'd like to do, then joined up by the cheapest most convenient transport options. Maybe your desired route comes from places/regions you'd always wanted to see, are interested in or simply sound romantic/adventurous to you. You'll do a bit of research with guidebooks, the internet and hopeful the list below and add a few more to your list and equally realise which routes are feasible and which are not so, then finally do a bit of tweaking for current events and weather patterns.